THE
PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Isn't it great to be here in California together? Forty
years ago, the great city of Los Angeles launched John
Kennedy and the New Frontier. Now, Los Angeles is launching
the first President of the new century: Al Gore.
(Applause.)

I come here tonight, above all, to say a
heartfelt thank you. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the
chance to serve. Thank you for being so good to Hillary and
Chelsea. I am so proud of them. And didn't she give a good
talk? I thought it was great. (Applause.) I thank you for
supporting the New Democratic agenda that has taken our
country to new heights of prosperity, peace and progress.
As always, of course, the lion's share of credit goes to the
American people -- who do the work, raise the kids and dream
the dreams.

Now, at this moment of unprecedented good
fortune, our people face a fundamental choice -- are we
going to keep this progress and prosperity going? Yes, we
are. (Applause.)

But, my friends, we can't take our
future for granted. We cannot take it for granted. So
let's just remember how we got here.

Eight years ago,
when our party met in New York, it was a far different time
for America. Our economy was in trouble, our society was
divided, our political system was paralyzed. Ten million of
our fellow citizens were out of work. Interest rates were
high. The deficit was $290 billion and rising. After 12
years of Republican rule, the federal debt had quadrupled,
imposing a crushing burden on our economy and on our
children.

Welfare rolls, crime, teen pregnancy,
income inequality -- all had been skyrocketing. And our
government was part of the problem, not part of the
solution.

I saw all this in a very personal way in
1992, out there in the real America with many of you. I
remember a child telling me her father broke down at the
dinner table because he lost his job. I remember an older
couple crying in front of me because they had to choose
between filling their shopping carts and filling their
prescriptions. I remember a hardworking immigrant in a
hotel kitchen who said his son was not really free, because
it wasn't safe for him to play in the neighborhood park.

I ran for President to change the future for those people.
(Applause.) And I asked you to embrace new ideas rooted in
enduring values: opportunity for all, responsibility from
all, and a community of all Americans.

You gave me
the chance to turn those ideas and values into action, after
I made one of the very best decisions of my entire life:
asking Al Gore to be my partner. (Applause.)

Now,
first, we proposed a new economic strategy: get rid of the
deficit to reduce interest rates; invest more in our people;
sell more American products abroad. We sent our plan to
Congress. It passed by a single vote in both Houses. In a
deadlocked Senate, Al Gore cast the tie-breaking vote.
(Applause.) Not a single Republican supported it.

Here's what their leaders said. Their leaders said our plan
would increase the deficit, kill jobs, and give us a one-way
ticket to recession. Time has not been kind to their
predictions. (Applause.)

Remember, our Republican
friends said then they would absolutely not be held
responsible for our economic policies. I hope the American
people take them at their word. (Applause.) Thank you.

Today, after seven and a half years of hard effort, we're in
the midst of the longest economic expansion in history.
More than 22 million new jobs, the lowest unemployment in 30
years, the lowest female unemployment in 40 years, the
lowest Hispanic and African American unemployment ever
recorded and the highest home ownership in history.
(Applause.)

Now, along the way, in 1995, we turned
back the largest cuts in history in Medicare, Medicaid,
education, and the environment. And just two years later we
proved that we could find a way to balance the budget and
protect our values. Today, we have gone from the largest
deficits in history to the largest surpluses in history.
(Applause.) And if -- but only if -- we stay on course, we
can make America debt-free for the first time since Andy
Jackson was President in 1835. (Applause.)

For the
first time in decades, wages are rising at all income
levels. We have the lowest child poverty in 20 years, the
lowest poverty rate for single mothers ever recorded. The
average family's income has gone up more than $5,000 and,
for African American families, even more. (Applause.) The
number of families who own stock has grown by 40 percent.

You know, Harry Truman's old saying has never been more
true: if you want to live like a Republican, you better
vote for the Democrats. (Applause.) Thank you.

But
our progress is about far more than economics. America is
also more hopeful, more secure and more free. We're more
hopeful because we're turning our schools around, with
higher standards, more accountability, more investment. We
have doubled funding for Head Start and provided
after-school and mentoring to more than a million more young
people. (Applause.) We're putting 100,000 well-trained
teachers in the early grades to lower class size.
Ninety-five percent of our schools are connected to the
Internet. Reading, math and SAT scores are up. And more
students than ever are going on to college, thanks to the
biggest expansion of college aid since the GI Bill 50 years
ago. (Applause.)

Now, don't let anybody tell you that
all children can't learn or that our public schools can't
make the grade. Yes, they can. Yes, they can.
(Applause.)

We're also more hopeful because we ended
welfare as we knew it. Now, those who can work, must work.
On that, we and the Republicans agreed. But we Democrats
also insisted on support for good parenting -- so that poor
children don't go hungry or lose their health care,
unmarried teens stay in school, and people get the job
training, child care and transportation they need. It has
worked. Today, there are 7.5 million people who have moved
from welfare to work, and the welfare rolls in our
administration have been cut in half. (Applause.)

We're more hopeful because of the way we cut taxes -- to
help Americans meet the challenges of work and child
rearing. This year alone, our HOPE Scholarship and Lifelong
Learning tax credits will help 10 million families pay for
college. Our earned income tax credit will help 15 million
families work their way into the middle class. Twenty-five
million families will get a $500 child tax credit.

Our empowerment zone tax credits are bringing new business
and new jobs to our hardest pressed communities -- from the
inner cities to Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to our
Native American reservations. (Applause.) And the typical
American family today is paying a lower share of its income
in federal income taxes than at any time during the past 35
years. (Applause.)

We are more hopeful because of
the Family and Medical Leave act, a bill that the previous
administration vetoed. They said it would cost jobs. It's
the first bill I signed. (Applause.) And we now have a
test. Twenty-two million new jobs later, over 20 million
Americans have been able to take a little time off to care
for a newborn child or sick relative. That's what it means
-- that's what it really means to be pro-family.
(Applause.) Thank you.

We are more secure country
because we cut crime -- with tougher enforcement, more than
100,000 new community police officers, a ban on assault
weapons, and the Brady Law, which has kept guns out of the
hands of half a million felons, fugitives and stalkers.
Today, crime is at a 25-year low. (Applause.)

And
we're more secure because of advances in health care. We've
extended the life of the Medicare trust fund by 26 years;
adding coverage for cancer screening and cutting-edge
clinical trials; we're coming closer to cures for dreaded
diseases. We made sure that people with disabilities could
go to work without losing their health care -- (applause) --
and that people who switch jobs without losing their
coverage. We dramatically improved diabetes care. We
provided health coverage under the Children's Health
Insurance Program to 2 million previously uninsured
children. And for the first time in our history, more than
90 percent of our kids have been immunized against serious
childhood diseases. You can be proud of that Democratic
record. (Applause.)

We are more secure because our
environment is cleaner. We've set aside more land in the
lower 48 states than any administration since Teddy
Roosevelt -- (applause) -- saving national treasures like
Yellowstone, the great California Redwoods, the Florida
Everglades. (Applause.) Moreover, our air is cleaner; our
water is cleaner; our food is safer; and our economy is
stronger. You can grow the economy and protect the
environment at the same time. (Applause.)

Now, we're
more free because we are closer today to the one America of
our dreams -- celebrating our diversity, affirming our
common humanity, opposing all forms of bigotry, from church
burnings to racial profiling to murderous hate crimes.
We're fighting for employment nondiscrimination legislation
and for equal pay for women. (Applause.) Thank you.

We found ways to mend, not end, affirmative action. We have
given America the most diverse administration in history --
it really looks like America. (Applause.) You know, if I
could just get my administration up here, it would be just
as good a picture as anything you saw a couple of weeks ago
in Philadelphia -- the real people loving it. (Applause.)
And we created AmeriCorps, which already has given more than
150,000 of our young people a chance to earn some money for
college by serving our communities.

We are more
secure and we're more free because of our leadership in the
world for peace, freedom and prosperity, helping to end a
generation of conflict in Northern Ireland; stopping the
brutal ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo -- (applause)
-- and bringing the Middle East closer than ever to a
comprehensive peace. (Applause.)

We built stronger
ties to Africa, Asia, and our Latin American and Caribbean
neighbors. We brought Poland, Hungary and the Czech
Republic into NATO. We are working with Russia to destroy
nuclear weapons and materials. We are fighting head-on the
new threats and injustices of the global age: terrorism,
narco-trafficking, biological and chemical warfare, the
trafficking in women and young girls, and the deadly spread
of AIDS. And in the great tradition of Jimmy Carter, who is
here tonight, we are still the world's leading force for
human rights around the world. Thank you, President Carter.
(Applause.)

The American military is the best
trained, best equipped, most effective fighting force in the
world. Our men and women have shown that time and again in
Bosnia, in Kosovo, in Haiti and Iraq. I can tell you that
their strength, their spirit, their courage and their
commitment to freedom have never been greater. Any
adversary who believes those who say otherwise is making a
grave mistake. (Applause.)

Now, my fellow Americans,
that's the record. Or, as that very famous Los Angeles
detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, used to say, "just the
facts, ma'am." (Laughter and applause.) I ask you, let's
remember the standard our Republican friends used to have
for whether a party should continue in office: my fellow
Americans, are we better off today than we were eight years
ago? (Applause.)

You bet we are. You bet we are.
(Applause.) Thank you. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. Yes, we
are.

But we're not just better off, we're also a
better country. (Applause.) We are today more tolerant,
more decent, more humane and more united. Now, that's the
purpose of prosperity. (Applause.)

Since 1992,
America has grown not just economically, but as a community.
Yes, jobs are up, but so are adoptions. Yes, the debt is
down, but so is teen pregnancy. We are becoming both more
diverse and more united.

My fellow Americans, tonight
we can say with gratitude and humility: we built our bridge
to the 21st century. We crossed that bridge together. And
we're not going back. (Applause.) Thank you.

To
those who say -- and I'm sure you heard this somewhere in
the last few days -- to those who say the progress of these
last eight years was just some sort of accident, that we
just kind of coasted along, let me be clear -- (applause) --
America's success was not a matter of chance; it was a
matter of choice. (Applause.)

And, today, America
faces another choice. It's every bit as momentous as the
one we faced eight years ago. For what a nation does with
its good fortune is just as stern a test of its character,
values and judgment as how it deals with adversity.

My fellow Americans, this is a big election, with great
consequences for every American, because the differences --
the honest differences -- between our candidates and their
visions are so profound. We can a have good, old-fashioned
election here. We should posit that our opponents are good,
honorable, patriotic people, and that we have honest
differences. But the differences are there.

Consider
this, just this: we in America would already have, this
year, a real patients' bill of rights, a minimum wage
increase, stronger equal pay laws for women, and middle
class tax cuts for college tuition and long-term care if the
Democratic Party were in the majority in Congress with Dick
Gephardt as Speaker and Tom Daschle as Majority Leader. And
come November, they will be. (Applause.)

That has to
be clear to people. And that's why every House and every
Senate seat is important. But if you'll give me one moment
of personal privilege, I'd like to say a word about Hillary.
(Applause.) When I first met her 30 years ago, she already
had an abiding passion to help children. And she's pursued
it ever since. Her very first job out of law school was
with the Children's Defense Fund.

Every year I was
governor she took lots of time away from her law practice to
work for better schools, or better children's health or jobs
for parents who lived in poor areas. Then when I became
President, she became a full-time advocate for her lifetime
cause. And what a job she has done. (Applause.) She
championed the Family Leave law, children's health
insurance, increased support for foster children and
adoptions. She wrote a best-selling book about caring for
our children. And then she took care of them by giving all
the profits to children's charities. (Applause.) For thirty
years -- 30 years, from the first day I met her, she has
always been there for all our kids.

She's been a
great First Lady. She's always been there for our family.
And she'll always be there for the families of New York and
America. (Applause.) Thank you.

Of course, we all
know that the biggest choice that the American people have
to make this year is in the presidential race. Now, you all
know how I feel. (Laughter.) But it's not my decision to
make. That belongs to the American people. I just want to
tell all of you here in this great arena, and all of the
folks watching and listening at home a few things that I
know about Al Gore. (Applause.)

We've worked closely
together for eight years now, in the most challenging
moments, when we faced the most difficult issues -- of war
and peace, of whether to take on some powerful interests --
he was always there. And he always told me exactly what he
thought was right.

Everybody knows he is thoughtful
and hard-working. But I can tell you personally he is one
strong leader. (Applause.) In 1993, there was nobody
around the table more willing to make the tough choices to
balance the budget the right way and take this tough stance
against balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and
working people of America. (Applause.) I have seen this
kind of positioning and this kind of strength time and again
-- whether it was in how we reform welfare or in protecting
the environment or in closing the digital divide or bringing
jobs to rural and urban America through the empowerment zone
program, the greatest champion of ordinary Americans has
always been Al Gore. (Applause.)

I'll tell you
something else about him. More than anybody else I've known
in public life, Al Gore understands the future and how
sweeping changes and scientific breakthroughs will affect
ordinary Americans' lives. And I think we need somebody in
the White House at the dawn of the 21st century who really
understands the future. (Applause.)

Finally, I want
to say something more personal. Virtually every week for
the last seven and a half years, until he became occupied
with more important matters, Al Gore and I had lunch. And
we talked about the business between us and the business of
America. But we'd also often talk about our families, what
our kids were doing, how school was going, what was going on
in their lives. I know him. He is a profoundly good man.
(Applause.) He loves his children more than life. And he
has a perfectly wonderful wife -- (applause) -- who has
fought against homelessness and who has done something for
me and all Americans in bringing the cause of mental health
into the broad sunlight of our national public life. We owe
Tipper Gore our thanks. (Applause.)

Al has picked a
great partner in Joe Lieberman. (Applause.) There's the
Connecticut crowd. Hillary and I have known Joe for 30
years, since we were in Connecticut in law school. I
supported him in his first race for public office in 1970,
when I learned he had been a Freedom Rider, going into
danger, to register black voters in the then-segregated
South. (Applause.) It should not be a surprise to anyone
that Al Gore picked the leader of the New Democrats to be
his Vice President. Because Joe Lieberman has supported all
our efforts to reform welfare, reduce crime, protect the
environment, protect civil rights and a woman's right to
choose and to keep this economy going. All of them.
(Applause.) And he has shown time and time again that he
will work with President Gore to keep putting people and
progress over partisanship. (Applause.)

Now, it's
up, frankly, to the Presidential nominee and the Vice
Presidential nominee to engage in this debate and to point
out the differences. But there are two issues I care a lot
about, and I want to make brief comments on them -- and I
hope I've earned the right to make comments on them.
(Applause.)

One is the economy -- I know a little
something about that. And the other is our efforts to build
one America.

First, on the economy, Al Gore and Joe
Lieberman will keep our prosperity going by paying down the
debt, investing in education and health care, moving more
people from welfare to work, and providing family tax cuts
we can afford. (Applause.) That stands in stark contrast
to the position of our Republican friends.

Here is
their position: they say we have a big projected 10 year
surplus and they want to spend every dime of it, and then
some, on tax cuts right now. That would leave nothing for
education or Medicare, prescription drugs; nothing to extend
the life of Medicare and Social Security for the baby
boomers; nothing in case the projected surpluses don't come
in.

Now, think about your own family's budget for a
minute. Or your own business budget. Would you sign a
binding contract today to spend all your projected income
for a decade, leaving nothing for your families' basic
needs, nothing for emergencies, nothing for a cushion in
case you didn't get the raise you thought you were going to
get? Of course you wouldn't do that; and America shouldn't
do it either. We should stick with what works.
(Applause.)

Let me say something to you that's even
more important than the economy to me. When Al Gore picked
Joe Lieberman, the first Jewish American to join a national
ticket, to be his partner -- (applause) -- and he joined
with our presidential nominee, who has, along with his great
mother and late father, a lifetime commitment to civil
rights and equal opportunity for all, even when it was not
popular down home in the south -- (applause) -- when they
did that, we had a ticket that embodies the Democratic
commitment to one America. They believe in civil rights and
equal opportunity for everybody. They believe in a woman's
right to choose. (Applause.) And, this may be the most
important of all -- they believe the folks that you're
buying your soft drinks and popcorn from here at the Staples
Center should have the exact same chance they do to send
their kids to college and give them a good life and a good
future. (Applause.)

My fellow Americans, I am very
proud of our leaders. And I want you to know that the
opportunity I have had to serve as President at the dawn of
a new era in human history has been an honor, a privilege
and a joy. I have done everything I knew how to do to
empower the American people, to unleash their amazing
optimism and imagination and hard work -- to turn our
country around from where it was in 1992 and to get us
moving forward together.

Now, what I want you to
understand tonight is that the best is still out there, the
best is yet to come if we make the right choices in this
election year. (Applause.)

But the choices will make
all the difference. In February, the American people
achieved the longest economic expansion in our history. When
that happened, I asked our folks at the White House when the
previous longest economic expansion was. You know when it
was? It was from 1961 through 1969. Now, I want the young
people especially to listen to this. I remember this
well.

I graduated from high school in 1964. Our
country was still very sad because of President Kennedy's
death, but full of hope under the leadership of President
Johnson. And I assumed then, like most Americans, that our
economy was on absolutely on automatic, that nothing could
derail it. I also believe then that our civil rights
problems would all be solved in Congress and the courts.
And in 1964, when we were enjoying the longest economic
expansion in history, we never dreamed that Vietnam would so
divide and wound our America.

So we took it for
granted. And then, before we knew it, there were riots in
the streets, even here. The leaders that I adored as a
young man -- Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy -- were
killed. Lyndon Johnson, a President from my part of the
country I admired so much for all he did for civil rights,
for the elderly and the poor, said he would not run again
because our nation was so divided. And then we had an
election in 1968 that took America on a far different and
more divisive course. And, you know, within months after
that election, the last longest economic expansion in
history was, itself, history.

Why am I telling you
this tonight? Not to take you down, but to keep you looking
up. I have waited, not as President, but as your fellow
citizen for over 30 years to see my country once again in
the position to build the future of our dreams for our
children. (Applause.) We are a great and good people. And
we have an even better chance this time than we did then,
with no great internal crisis and no great external threat.
Still, I have lived long enough to know that opportunities
must be seized or they will be lost.

My friends,
fifty-four years ago this week, I was born in a summer storm
to a young widow in a small southern town. America gave me
the chance to live my dreams. And I have tried as hard as I
knew how to give you a better chance to live yours.
(Applause.) Now, my hair is a little grayer, my wrinkles
are a little deeper; but with the same optimism and hope I
brought to the work I loved so eight years ago, I want you
to know my heart is filled with gratitude.

My fellow
Americans, the future of our country is now in your hands.
You must think hard, feel deeply, and choose wisely. And,
remember, whenever you think about me, keep putting people
first. Keep building those bridges. And don't stop
thinking about tomorrow.

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